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Articles by Jon Hart
Confessions of a U.S. Open Ball Boy
The 2026 U.S. Open championship begins today. Boy, that brings back memories of the time I tried to make it as a tournament ballboy. Here’s how it turned out. When I showed up for my tryout at a public court just outside the U.S. Open facility in Flushing Meadows, New York, I was already sweating. Itwas unusually hot and muggy, and fifth-set-tie-break tense. Standing at the net, the Ball Czar, a tall, lean, authoritative woman in tennis whites and shades, is very much in charge.
U.S. Open Ball Person Confidential (The Art of Being Invisible)
Ballboys at the US Open (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images) Getty Images (Editor’s note: This article was originally published on August 27, 2014.) For three years, I worked the U.S. Open courts as a ball person. I wasn’t the quickest. I didn’t have the best hands. But I was super-focused, and I had an above-average arm. I wound up working a match in Arthur Ashe Stadium and being runner-up for Rookie of The Year. I was surprised too that such a title exists.
Red, White, and the Blues
The U.S. got walloped by Belgium, 4-1, last night. Broadcaster Alexi Lalas misspoke, calling the humiliating loss a “moral victory.” Really?! No, there was no victory, and if there was any moral, it should be that politicians should stay in their lane. Coming soon on Netflix, “Red Card Revoked,” starring DT and Johnny But props to Belgium. They outplayed the Americans, who had overestimated them in every phase of the match, including those in the stands.
Leftover 69: An Excerpt from Jon Hart’s ‘Unfortunately, I was available’
‘Unfortunately, I was available’ is Hart’s ode to the surreal, thankless and oddly endearing world of gig work. Courtesy Jon Hart I submit to play an upstate New York townie for The Leftovers, then in its first season. The shoot is in Nyack, New York, about fifty minutes north of the city. Rockland County, where Nyack is located, is often used to portray rural America. It’s just not feasible to transport the entire production to the sticks. I hear back from casting in minutes.
Jon Hart
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The 13 Commandments of Being a Background Actor
After my back-up plan to my back-up plan crashed and burned, I wound up in “extra land.” I became a background actor — no experience required. I played everything from a creepy nun to a Hasidic Jew to John Early (albeit from behind, with a bald spot shaved into my head). It was film school on the cheap. I observed the production process up close and took copious notes. In no particular order, then, here are my 13 Commandments of Being a Background Actor.
The 13 Commandments of Being a Background Actor
Generate Key Takeaways After my back-up plan to my back-up plan crashed and burned, I wound up in “extra land.” I became a background actor — no experience required. I played everything from a creepy nun to a Hasidic Jew to John Early (albeit from behind, with a bald spot shaved into my head). It was film school on the cheap. I observed the production process up close and took copious notes. In no particular order, then, here are my 13 Commandments of Being a Background Actor.
The Pretty Things: Last Shot at America
The Pretty Things were one of rock’s most influential bands, inspiring everyone from Bowie to the Ramones to The Who. Pretties guitarist Dick Taylor was a founding member of the Rolling Stones. However, the Pretties remained in relative obscurity. When I was asked to be their roadie for their North American tour, I’d never heard of ’em. After about three weeks on the road with the Pretties, I’ll never forget them. This is the story of my Pretty Things tour.
Merchant Ivory (2024)
Ismail Merchant and James Ivory were a force to be reckoned with in the film industry, creating Merchant Ivory, a production studio that employed the likes of Hugh Grant, Helena Bonham Carter, and more. The studio has thrived for years, and this documentary is a testament to their time together in the industry, peering beyond what the world already knows about them. Merchant Ivory is far too long, longer than any documentary should be, really.
Memcached Stats Amplification Scanner
## # This module requires Metasploit: https://metasploit.com/download # Current source: https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework ## class MetasploitModule < Msf::Auxiliary include Msf::Auxiliary::Report include Msf::Exploit::Capture include Msf::Auxiliary::UDPScanner include Msf::Auxiliary::DRDoS def initialize super( 'Name' => 'Memcached Stats Amplification Scanner', 'Description' => %q( This module can be used to discover Memcached servers which expose the unrestricted UDP port 11211.
I Was a Roadie on Pretty Things' US Tour. It Was Their Last Shot
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments.
I Was a Roadie on Pretty Things’ US Tour. It Was Their Last Shot
Minutes into my roadie debut at Seattle's Bumbershoot in 1999, I'm thrown to the fire. Pretty Things manager-producer Mark St. John reminds me three times to get liquids to drummer Skip Alan, a burly man with shaggy hair. "He dehydrates!" explains the flamboyant St. John, who sports a ponytail and wears black spandex shorts and a tight black sleeveless shirt. Skip does more than dehydrate. Once, he vomited over his shoulder, continuing to play. St. John is also nervous about the crowd.
Square Peg in a Round Hole: Jon Hart on Navigating the Industry as a Neurodivergent Musician
I only became aware of neurodiversity in the last couple of years, after experiencing mental health crises in 2021 and 2022. A psychiatric assessment suggested that I might have ADHD or ASD, which sent me into an identity crisis. I had been diagnosed with dyslexia when I was in university, but I never looked deeper into it at the time, as I was focused on building my music career in my early twenties.
How Succession Planning Can Help Combat the Great Retirement
As facility managers retire in droves, organizations need to be proactive about succession planning to protect institutional knowledge. That’s especially true when it comes to fire and life safety strategies and technology. Here are some tips. We’ve likely all heard of the Great Resignation by now, but there’s another prominent hiring trend lurking behind the scenes: the Great Retirement.
David Ortiz and the story of his 500th home run
Catching a historic ball can be a life-changing moment and opportunity for a fan. Here’s what happened to the 500th home run of David Ortiz. Alan Schuster, a 35-year-old IT guy, belonged to no team and had no official position, but he was ready to make a play, a major league play. Schuster was standing with his well-worn Mizuno glove in the right-center field seats of Tropicana Field.
Movie Review - King Richard
by Jon Hart | Dec 7, 2021 | Jon Hart, Tennis With thirty singles Grand Slam titles between them, sisters Venus and Serena Williams are two of the greatest tennis players of all-time. However, they’re not the focus of King Richard. Instead, their father, the controversial, outspoken Richard Williams, played by Will Smith, takes center stage. It’s a meaty role which Smith owns.
Book and Film Globe
Who knows if there will be college football or an NFL season this fall? However, there’s compelling college football on right now. Well, kind of. Netflix recently released its fifth season of Last Chance U, a compelling docuseries that explores the little-known world of junior college football. In JUCO, many of the underrated or underachieving players are grinding to earn a scholarship at a traditional four-year school, hopefully Division 1. LCU adeptly captures the barbaric nature of the game.
Where Have You Gone, Garry Templeton?
What if a pack of 1986 Topps baseball cards came to life? San Francisco-area college professor Brad Balukjian had that fantasy, and he made it happen. Balukjian hit the road in his modest Honda Accord, Whitesnake blaring, in search of what happened to all the pack’s players, who run the gamut from Hall of Fame inductee to relative unknown. It’s fitting that his The Wax Pack: On The Open Road In Search of Baseball’s Afterlife has the same element of surprise as opening a fresh pack of cards.
My Father's Four Years of Passionate and Earnest Love Letters — to Jamba Juice
The night of December 18, 2004, began as an ordinary evening for Blair Cobbs’s father, Eugene. At 33, the elder Cobbs was already a seasoned veteran of the drug trafficking trade. He was flying solo to his hometown of Philadelphia, having taken off from Compton Airport near Los Angeles. After a quick fuel-up in Missouri, it was somewhere over West Virginia that things began to go bad for the self-taught pilot.
Lawrence Rothman Finds Space To Grieve And Grow
Originally published on November 20, 2018 10:43 am VIDEO As a gender-fluid artist, musician and producer, Lawrence Rothman's life and art are built on change. A Google Images search gives visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refer to as alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use. In a statement introducing their new mini-album, Rothman points to the suicide of the artist's best friend of 17 years, Bobby.
Lawrence Rothman Finds Space To Grieve And Grow
VIDEO As a gender-fluid artist, musician and producer, Lawrence Rothman's life and art are built on change. A Google Images search gives visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refer to as alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use. In a statement introducing their new mini-album, Rothman points to the suicide of the artist's best friend of 17 years, Bobby.
Lawrence Rothman Finds Space To Grieve And Grow
VIDEO As a gender-fluid artist, musician and producer, Lawrence Rothman's life and art are built on change. A Google Images search gives visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refer to as alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use. In a statement introducing their new mini-album, Rothman points to the suicide of the artist's best friend of 17 years, Bobby.
Lawrence Rothman Finds Space To Grieve And Grow
VIDEO As a gender-fluid artist, musician and producer, Lawrence Rothman's life and art are built on change. A Google Images search gives visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refer to as alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use. In a statement introducing their new mini-album, Rothman points to the suicide of the artist's best friend of 17 years, Bobby.
Lawrence Rothman Finds Space To Grieve And Grow
As a gender-fluid artist, musician and producer, Lawrence Rothman's life and art are built on change. A Google Images search gives visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refer to as alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use. In a statement introducing their new mini-album, Rothman points to the suicide of the artist's best friend of 17 years, Bobby.
Lawrence Rothman Finds Space To Grieve And Grow
VIDEO As a gender-fluid artist, musician and producer, Lawrence Rothman's life and art are built on change. A Google Images search gives visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refer to as alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use. In a statement introducing their new mini-album, Rothman points to the suicide of the artist's best friend of 17 years, Bobby.
Lawrence Rothman Finds Space To Grieve And Grow
VIDEO As a gender-fluid artist, musician and producer, Lawrence Rothman's life and art are built on change. A Google Images search gives visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refer to as alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use. In a statement introducing their new mini-album, Rothman points to the suicide of the artist's best friend of 17 years, Bobby.
Lawrence Rothman Finds Space To Grieve And Grow
Lawrence Rothman in the music video for "Oath." hide caption toggle caption Lawrence Rothman in the music video for "Oath." As a gender-fluid artist, musician and producer, Lawrence Rothman's life and art are built on change. A Google Images search gives visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refer to as alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use.
Love, Basketball & Air Force One
The Rebounders: A Division 1 Basketball Journey and From the Corner of The Oval First-time authors Amanda Ottaway and Beck Dorey-Stein are young women who have some things in common. They’re both jocks, Pennsylvania natives, and they wrote memoirs about their experiences in exclusive sectors. Ottaway, a western Pennsylvania native, earned a basketball scholarship to Davidson College in North Carolina.
Big Thief's 'Shark Smile' Is A Rocking Road Song Ending In Tragedy
The rock band Big Thief recorded its second album, Capacity, at a friend's house in upstate New York last winter. Lead singer Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, bass player Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia devoted entire days to each song. When the band recorded "Shark Smile," a song about a doomed car ride, Lenker turned her guitar amp all the way up to 10 for the first time.
Big Thief's 'Shark Smile' Is A Rocking Road Song Ending In Tragedy
The rock band Big Thief recorded its second album, Capacity, at a friend's house in upstate New York last winter. Lead singer Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, bass player Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia devoted entire days to each song. When the band recorded "Shark Smile," a song about a doomed car ride, Lenker turned her guitar amp all the way up to 10 for the first time.
Big Thief's 'Shark Smile' Is A Rocking Road Song Ending In Tragedy
The rock band Big Thief recorded its second album, Capacity, at a friend's house in upstate New York last winter. Lead singer Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, bass player Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia devoted entire days to each song. When the band recorded "Shark Smile," a song about a doomed car ride, Lenker turned her guitar amp all the way up to 10 for the first time.
Big Thief's 'Shark Smile' Is A Rocking Road Song Ending In Tragedy
The rock band Big Thief recorded its second album, Capacity, at a friend's house in upstate New York last winter. Lead singer Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, bass player Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia devoted entire days to each song. When the band recorded "Shark Smile," a song about a doomed car ride, Lenker turned her guitar amp all the way up to 10 for the first time.
Big Thief's 'Shark Smile' Is A Rocking Road Song Ending In Tragedy
The rock band Big Thief recorded its second album, Capacity, at a friend's house in upstate New York last winter. Lead singer Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, bass player Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia devoted entire days to each song. When the band recorded "Shark Smile," a song about a doomed car ride, Lenker turned her guitar amp all the way up to 10 for the first time.
Big Thief's 'Shark Smile' Is A Rocking Road Song Ending In Tragedy
The rock band Big Thief recorded its second album, Capacity, at a friend's house in upstate New York last winter. Lead singer Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, bass player Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia devoted entire days to each song. When the band recorded "Shark Smile," a song about a doomed car ride, Lenker turned her guitar amp all the way up to 10 for the first time.
Big Thief's 'Shark Smile' Is A Rocking Road Song Ending In Tragedy
The rock band Big Thief recorded its second album, Capacity, at a friend's house in upstate New York last winter. Lead singer Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, bass player Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia devoted entire days to each song. When the band recorded "Shark Smile," a song about a doomed car ride, Lenker turned her guitar amp all the way up to 10 for the first time.
Big Thief's 'Shark Smile' Is A Rocking Road Song Ending In Tragedy
The rock band Big Thief recorded its second album, Capacity, at a friend's house in upstate New York last winter. Lead singer Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, bass player Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia devoted entire days to each song. When the band recorded "Shark Smile," a song about a doomed car ride, Lenker turned her guitar amp all the way up to 10 for the first time.
Hammond hints at commitment in low-key Budget
Those with long memories will remember claims during previous statements that “we are the government of builders”. This year hi-vis has been relatively conspicuous by its absence, but those picking through the bones of the chancellor’s speech yesterday may have identified a few hints among the laboured jokes.
Industry raises doubts over Labour's PFI plans
Construction and business leaders have questioned shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s proposal to scrap private finance initiatives, take all current PFIs “in-house” and potentially nationalise the construction industry if it was to win the next election. Mr McDonnell announced plans to “rip up” PFI and take current projects “in-house” as part of his keynote speech at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton on Monday.
Why Labour's PFI proposals would be hugely complicated
Given that PFI remains the love child of the New Labour era and the rather neglected awkward teen of the coalition and Tory governments, the announcements from shadow chancellor John McDonnell in Brighton should not be seen as surprising. In terms of reviewing current contracts, the Treasury has been reviewing the performance of individual contracts for some time now.
Scottish infrastructure boost as £1.1bn deal agreed
The Scottish and UK governments have agreed to pump £1.1bn into Edinburgh and south-east Scotland in order to boost infrastructure. The UK government and Scottish Government have committed a joint investment of £600m over the next 15 years. And six local councils haved committed a combined total of £500m.
Duke Sucks! Q&A with Duke Sucks Co-author Reed Tucker
Five years ago, co-authors Reed Tucker and Andy Bagwell full court pressed the most hated college basketball team in the universe, the Duke Blue Devils, and wrote a fun book, Duke Sucks: A Completely Evenhanded, Unbiased Investigation into the Most Evil Team on Planet Earth These days, Grayson Allen is providing plenty of fodder for Duke despisers – yes they spell it Dook – and college basketball fans everywhere.
This late coach kept Brooklyn amateur football alive for decades
Sports By Jon Hart November 25, 2016 | 1:26am Coach Robert "Pudgie" Walsh James Messerschmidt Not a lot of outsiders know about the handful of amateur football leagues that play in New York City — Brooklyn alone has its New York Kings, its Pharaohs, its Seminoles. But in the southeast corner of that borough, the semipro Brooklyn Mariners are an institution, and for 59 years, the team’s profane, sidelines-stomping coach has been a local legend.
The Spirit of ’96: A Yankee Vendor’s World Series Memories
It has been twenty years since I was in the inferno: The Yankee Stadium bleachers, where the Bleacher Creatures, the rowdiest of the rowdy, raised hell, pleading with women to bare their breasts, among other politically incorrect shenanigans. This was before stadiums became glorified food courts, and there were flat screens were at every concession stand. Quite memorably, during a rare mid-September matinee, I was hawking hot dogs.
Ranking the SEC Football Stadium Experiences
Our rankings are compiled using our FANFARE scale which measures several aspects of the stadium experience including the food & beverage served at the stadium, the overall atmosphere, the neighborhood where the stadium resides, the fans, the overall access to and inside teh stadium, return on investment, and one additional category for any extras.
9 College Football Rivalry Games Worth the Trip
The game: The Swamp, Florida's stadium, is one of the most unique places to see a game. Before the action, the Gators take the "Gator Walk," exiting the team bus outside the stadium and going through the crowd. As the Florida band plays the Jaws theme throughout the contest, 90,000 fans perform the Gator Chomp, slapping their arms together in a massive bite. At the end of the third quarter, fans wrap their arms around one another and sing "We are The Boys," a Gator tradition.
I Was a Leftover
I’m experiencing a new reality. I’m a survivor of the rapture, and I am outraged. I’m attending a town meeting to vent. I’m playing make believe. I’m an extra on The Leftovers. An actor pal told me about the gig, and I thought it could be fun, maybe. On the day of the shoot, I report to a parochial school cafeteria in Nyack, New York, at 11:30 in the morning. Fortunately, I have a friend who lives in Nyack, and he put me up for the night and dropped me off.
Donald Young Finally Has His Moment
I was Donald Young’s ball boy. I tossed him balls to serve and handed him his towel. This was back when he was in his mid teens, and he was anointed the second coming of Johnny Mac. Actually, the media hyped him as the Tiger Woods of Tennis. I worked a lot of Donald’s matches. I didn’t count. Understand, I worked a lot of matches (I am a veteran ball person), and the players were forgettable – but not Donald. He wore his baseball cap crooked, an earring, and he often looked distracted.
Can Lewis Schaffer, Once NYC’s Biggest Comedy Barker, Play Abroad
Lewis Schaffer was the barker for the Boston Comedy Club. It was his job to do whatever it took nag, nudge, and beg—to get customers into Boston, which no one would confuse with the relatively highbrow Caroline’s or The Cellar, which was right around the corner. Boston was a dive, where fights broke out mid-set. If Lewis wasn’t the city’s best barker, he was certainly the most memorable.
Running Up Buildings Is Becoming Quite the Serious Sport
Running up buildings is not an Olympic sport, at least not yet. But, it’s making progress in that department. Last year, there were exactly 200 sanctioned tower races, including New York's Empire State Building Run-Up — the Super Bowl of stair running — which held its 2014 competition last night.
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